Is the Reea Nursery base station in Craighall Park, JHB active or not?

[brettwlewis]

Would anyone have any reliable info on this?

The techies that have visited my house don't seem to be sure. Some say it's live - other say it's 4-6 weeks way - other say its a planned site.

 

[T-Man]

I scouted past there today. Only 8ta I picked up was Auckland park, Linden, Milpark, a tower close to Cosmo City and the tall building close to SARS in Randburg.

So NO, 8ta is not active on that tower.

 

[Telkom]

Hi guys!

This tower is planned to go live mid June 2012 and is currently in the final testing phase.

Regards,
Social Media Team

 

[T-Man]

Is this tower live yet?

 

[brettwlewis]

My signal quality tells me it's not live yet. I normally hover around the 20-30% mark, supposedly I'm picking up signal from Linden.

Though on one occasion I saw 50%+ signal strength, but that only lasted for a fleeting moment - perhaps I caught the tail end of a test.

As I type now, I have just lost network connection, again. It's been worse in the last 10 days or so. I can only hope that this is due to some testing.

My new antenna was working so well...

 

[Telkom]

Hi there

This site is confirmed as active and running with no errors at 16h30 yesterday. There were issues with the tower but they have since been resolved.

Regards,
Social Media Team

 

[brettwlewis]

It is?

My signal is still hovering just around 29%.

I'm about 500m from Reea with an omnidirectional rooftop antenna, so I would have expected my modem to find the new tower.

I just rebooted by router just in case the modem needed a kick start, but the signal is unchanged.

 

[T-Man]

Hi there

This site is confirmed as active and running with no errors at 16h30 yesterday. There were issues with the tower but they have since been resolved.

Regards,
Social Media Team

Hi Mr 8ta
What's the CID of the tower, at least then we'll know if we're talking to the right tower?

 

[brettwlewis]

My signal seems to have hopped up from 29% to 32%, and sometimes it even peaks at 35%. But performance is much the same. So I can't say, that if this tower is active, that being about 500m away from it has made much of a difference in my life.

 

[brettwlewis]

Whoa! 22% signal today. Something is not lekker today.

 

[Telkom]

Hi guys

The Cell ID is either 27461/2/3/4/5/6. There are 6 Cells per tower.

Brett - we have requested a trace on your number to see which tower you connect to and awaiting feedback. We will have to send someone again if required to sort your query out.

Regards,
Social Media Team

 

[Telkom]

Whoa! 22% signal today. Something is not lekker today.

Hi brettlewis!

We have done the trace and it seems that you do not connect to this tower. We will have someone come out and have a look once more. Your new reference number is 1627874.

Regards,
Social Media Team

 

[brettwlewis]

A 8ta techie came to visit and it looks like I still get signal from Linden a few km away, with my connection wavering between two towers. It looks like I may be too high in relation to Reea - we are on a slope with Reea down in the valley.

The ticket has been passed to a department that will help me re-orient my antenna - I look forward to them trying that - I have both a 11dbi directional and 6bdi omni on my mast on my roof - with the omni in use at the moment - it gives a lower signal but a better overall connection experience.

 

[Telkom]

A 8ta techie came to visit and it looks like I still get signal from Linden a few km away, with my connection wavering between two towers. It looks like I may be too high in relation to Reea - we are on a slope with Reea down in the valley.

The ticket has been passed to a department that will help me re-orient my antenna - I look forward to them trying that - I have both a 11dbi directional and 6bdi omni on my mast on my roof - with the omni in use at the moment - it gives a lower signal but a better overall connection experience.

Hi brettlewis!

As per the techs - you need to point your directional antenna to GC_Ria_Nursery which is 87.3 Degrees from North. The omni directional can not be directed (for obvious reasons). They are proposing an antenna with at least a 20dBM gain to resolve your issue. They will be in contact regarding this.

Regards,
Social Media Team

 

[brettwlewis]

Hi,

I somehow doubt that this will work. Even a naked USB modem doesn't connect to the Reea tower as far as I understand, so to me it sounds like I'm not in the footprint of the base station for some reason. I cannot believe that the signal is weak enough from a base station 500m away to warrant an antenna with a gain of 20dbi.

I'll go up onto my roof this weekend with my 11dbi and see if I can find any signal around that orientation. But my gut feeling is that my antenna placement on the top of my double-storey house is too high to catch any of the signal from that base station.

Call me a skeptic but it sounds to me like someone is sucking a bit of thumb here. But I'd be very happy to be proved wrong...

 

[Telkom]

Hi

The tower you connect to is definitely in a valley and is not very high on the tower (15m). Your elevation seems to be a lot higher. Maybe try to get the antenna lower? There are also a number of trees which may get in the way.

Regards,
Social Media Team

 

[brettwlewis]

The only place I can drop the antenna down to is on the opposite side of the house, so that won't work. And yes, there are lost of big trees in the suburb.

I think ultimately the signal I have is the signal I have. At least it is a bit better than the 384k DSL I used to use.

 

[Telkom]

The only place I can drop the antenna down to is on the opposite side of the house, so that won't work. And yes, there are lost of big trees in the suburb.

I think ultimately the signal I have is the signal I have. At least it is a bit better than the 384k DSL I used to use.

Hi brettlewis!

If you have moved your antenna over the weekend, please provide feedback?

Regards,
Social Media Team

 

[brettwlewis]

I will post again once I've tried the directional antenna - I didn't have a chance this weekend.

 

[brettwlewis]

My signal has been hovering in the upper 20%'s for a long while - in the last week or so its hopped up to upper-30's and sometimes over 40%. Sadly though my ping times and throughput seem to have dropped off noticeably.

Can anyone shed any light on what's changed in the Craighall Park area?